Talk:Cotah Ramaswami

Davis Cup

Removed this from the Notes section : V.Ramnarayan (see references) writes that while at Cambridge, Ramaswami and S.M.Hadi (another first class cricketer) won a doubles tournament defeating a Dutch pair in the final, who went on to win the Wimbledon doubles title. It is not obvious who the Dutch players were.

Ramnarayan was wrong. According to My reminiscences by C.Ramaswami, published in The Sunday Standard (undated) and reproduced in Buchi Babu and his sporting clan, the Dutch players that Ramaswami and Hadi defeated were von Lennep and Castendyck who were the doubles champions of Holland but didn't do anything notable in Wimbledon.

Ramaswami writes about the Davis Cup match against Spain (p.28) that Spain had a very strong team with Manuel Alonso and Comte de Gomar and Flaquer, who played the doubles. Dr Fyzee and I beat them after a gruelling five set encounter. A fortnight later, they won the men's doubles at Wimbledon.

Ramaswami isn't correct either. The India-Spain match was in 1922 Link. Comte de Gomar and Flaquer reached the doubles final at Wimbledon the next year (1923) see this but lost to Leslie Godfree and Randolph Lycett in the final. This will be added to the article in the next revision. Tintin (talk) 12:54, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Wimbledon

Writes Subroto Sircar in his article "The two-trade men" in Cricinfo Magazine, July 2006 issue :

Legall, one of Trinidad's finest all-round sportsmen, went on to play Davis Cup for British Carribean in 1954 and again in 1956.But while Ramaswami appeared at Wimbledon, Legall never played at the most famous of all tennis tournaments.

In 1921, Ramaswami played Wimbledon at the Worple Road. The following summer, when the tournament moved to its present venue on Wimbledon's church road, Ramaswami was one of the several Indian participants. Another was Syed Mohammed Hadi, also a Cambridge man, who later, like Ramaswami, represented India in the Davis Cup.

There are no mentions about Ramaswami playing at Wimbledon in the few books that I have. The most prominent among them is a 15 page memoir by Ramaswami (see refs in the article). He dedicates three pages to his time abroad between 1919 and 1923 - one page for his Cambridge days, one for his tour of Holland and Davis Cup apperances and another for his tennis tour of USA. The two Davis Cup matches are allotted a long paragraph but there is no mention about Wimbledon. In a recent column, Steven Lynch says he doesn't know about Ramaswami playing at Wimbledon.

There is no reason to suppose that Ramaswami forgot to mention about Wimbledon in his memoirs. Wimbledon should not be included in this article unless supported by a more authentic reference like a listing of all players/matches from Wimbledon 1921/1922, the autobiography of Ramaswami or some such book. Tintin (talk) 14:14, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Ramaswami took part in 1922 Wimbledon according to 1922 Wimbledon Championships – Men's Singles, which comes from the ITF site. So I am going to add it in the article. Tintin 14:37, 16 March 2012 (UTC)